Avoiding Gravity Gear Faux Pas

Like tennis and golf, cycling has a rich history that dictates what participants may or may not wear while engaged in the sport. Wear a hoodie on the golf course and you may not get a tee time. Show up to your tennis match in yoga pants and prepare for some ridicule. Similarly, there are subtle, yet real fashion rules that dictate the gravity side of cycling.

To a newcomer, riding bikes is confusing enough, what with all of the pedals and levers and everything. Add in helmets, eyewear, gloves, shoes, and, if she's embarking on a cross country or road career, Spandex, and you have a recipe for fashion disaster. We've all seen it, and most of us fell victim to it before embarrassed friends or fellow riders steered us in the right direction.

Lately, I've noticed that things in the lift-served world are starting to get a bit out of hand. The improper use of gravity gear, mainly as witnessed at Deer Valley (which, ironically, is a place where posh ski attire is essentially required to board the lifts during the winter), really has me worried. Therefore, I am creating a guide to spell out the hows, whys, and why-nots of proper gravity gear usage.

Safety is the first consideration of most gravity gear guidelines. Over the next few weeks, I'll cover the basics from helmets to shoes to give newer riders some background for gravity's seemingly-arbitrary rules, and to give more experienced riders the ammo they need to dig their hopelessly-hindered friends out of their hideously-attired ruts.

In the meantime, get a debriefing at the Jeep 48Straight website, where I answered a few fashion questions for the masses.

Skip to:
Helmets
Helmets Additional
Upper Body Armor